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Why so few Non Pirate, Low/Nullsec, WH EVE Blogs?

I wish I could have phrased that question better, but it just gets straight to the point of the question in EVE Online. And its a question I’ve had in my mind since I started in EVE almost 2 years ago.

I have my own opinions and so ideas why playing EVE over the course of that time, but rather than try to write about it I rather have the readers try to answer or comment about it for a change in their own opinion and perspectives.

The way I look at it is like this. If I was to wake up out of a coma today and read say 100 of the most popular and easily found/linked EVE Blogs I would get the overall opinion that the very vast majority of players and life in EVE are either about life in Low/Nullsec as Pirates and represents Low and Nullsec Alliances, as Pirates that live in WH’s doing the dirty deeds. That would be my overall impression of the vast majority of Blogs about EVE Online.

Yet the very heart of the Economic Engine of EVE is somewhat supported by a very different kind of capsuleer.

The amount of EVE blogs that don’t fall into that category is very few. So where are all the other blogs and why so very few as well?

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28 comments

I am not sure how to put this nicely, but generally a carebear who takes a safe approach to EVE is unlikely to generate as much interesting and blog worthy game content as someone who is in Low or Null Sec.

This is pretty much the same view I have on the situation as well. Whilst one can easily blog about missioning and mining, it’s unlikely to attract a large audience.
There’s also the fact that (in my personal opinion) people who only take safer approaches to gameplay are less likely to feel inclined to blog about their ongoings

I don’t agree that’s it’s inherently less interesting to audiences. There are tons of PvE or economic blogs in other games like WoW. Also Jester’s Incursion articles have got him very high traffic.

I do agree with tgl3 that the pvp players are more likely to blog but that’s partly because a lot of pvp is very alt tab friendly. At one point there was even a Goon fleet doctrine to alt tab and play World of Tanks while the FC and scouts found a fight. With that sort of gaming rhythm it’s easy to blog. Plus pvp is inherently social in Eve except for very rare free spirits who lone wolf. Some of the blog articles from for example My Loot Your Tears are written to explain complex tactics to other players so they make a good training tool when flying with people in the game.

I’ve been reading Eve Blogs for over three years now and blogging myself for over two, and evehermit hits on part of the issue. There have been many industrial/mining/building/carebear focused blogs that have popped up over that time… but very, very few make it long. They often start strong but eventually they stutter and eventually stop.

The reasons are simple really and imply nothing against the playstyle, but more to repetition in my opinion. Variety being the spice of life. I undock and fight when I log into Eve, each time I have no idea what that will bring, who it will be against or what the outcome will be. For the formula driven player that unknown quantity is mostly removed from the game. Even mission running eventually comes down to formula, look at what has happened to Incursions over the last months.

And formula, no matter how well you sugar coat it, is boring. There will always be those that can overcome it however and I remain on the look out for them. But as far as interest, variety and long-term sustainability goes, it is hard to maintain a blog about shooting lasers into rocks. Day after day.

Day 1: Ran missions, earned ISK. Got that same Mordus mission 8 times lolz
Day 2: Ran incursions, earned ISK. You can earn a lot if all you do all day is shoot the same 3 ships 20 times an hour! lol!

About sum up the reasons why not?

I have/have had a few alts in various highsec corps for AWOX / thefty reasons. Few to none of the other players engaged with the community in any way at all. Some didn’t even know Crucible was about to be released.

Exactly what Evehermit said. How exciting is it to read about a ‘bear that just cashed out 20 million lp for the caldari navy so he can now buy an estamel’s invul field for his pimped out nightmare? (then again that information might not be wise to put out in the blogosphere, if you get my drift!)

I just posted a blog about why 0.0 isn’t the end game of Eve and as I’m checking the published article I see your post at the top of the Blog Pack feed. After reading it, I’ve gone back and edited my post and I’ve linked this one in as I think it supports my theory and what evehermit says above.

Generally 0.0 is carebear. I used to be a carebear and I would hate to think how I could blog about that.

Well, I blogged for about a year. A couple of things turned me off doing so. One of which was the knowledge that I was talking alot about ship fittings… and some reasonably expensive bling because of it.

Not entirely sure I wanted to continue talking about it as it made us something of a target.

Secondly, after having read the EULA (and what is it with having to acknowledge the damn thing every time there is a patch it seems!), the power to swat someone is entirely with CCP.

If it came down to a choice between playing EvE or talking about it, I know which one I’d much rather do. Now I’ve been both critical of CCP and supportive of them and really also don’t want to waste three years if they started to take a hard line.

Coupled with RL being very busy = end of story, though I miss it truth be told.

I remember some statistic that only 4% of eve pilots always have something in production (by that standard I fail utterly as an industrialist). So you’re looking at a potential ratio of 24 pirate/pvp blogers for each industrialist based bloggers out of the gate. And you wonder why they are rare?

Heck since only 5% of EVE pilots are female that makes indy pilots rarer than female pilots in EVE. Let’s not even speculate about the female industrialists…

Then you have to factor in the mentality that the rest of EVE is out to kill them, so why make it easy on the guys trying to fuck em over by making a lot of information public?

Sorry, that’s a huge leap to say that because only 4% always have something in production the other 96% are pirates/pvpers. Some players are mission runners. Some industrialists forget to put new buns in the oven sometimes. Some people just do research. Some now just do PI. Some mine.

I certainly wrote about my progress, problems, plateaus, and results when it came to mining, production, research, invention, and even skill point choices as they were happening. But you hit a point where you are either going to become an information source, a blog how-to guide on the about the topic, or move on to something new or more interesting.

Missions though… I would say, for example, having played EVE on and off for over five years, mostly as an Empire carebear, I have less than half a dozen posts specifically about missions, and those are usually when I screwed something up in dramatic fashion and ships went boom. The hundred or so times I have ran “Avenge a Fallen Comrade” remain pretty much unmentioned, except to occasionally grouse that I have ran that damn mission… well… a hundred or so times.

Fascinating reading all of the above comments. I would be one of Letrange’s 4% – I simply always have something in production on all times, and usually on at least two accounts.

In theory, I have a finite amount of things I could blog about. I’m currently in the latter stages of a series of Capital Ship production, but then I’ve not considered Titans and Supercaps, as I have no experience of that yet.

In many ways my life in Eve will never be as varied as Rixx – undocking when he logs on to shoot something and not knowing what he’ll find every time he does so. Yet in other ways, on a longer term perspective, as the game develops and my skills increase allowing me to access other production chains, my life in Eve is also constantly changing.

I do agree with evehermit and tgl3’s comments though and think that this is probably the closest thing to an answer to your question.

There are two main reasons I sometimes feel inhibited writing about carebearing in Eve.

The first is that it makes you a target. If I say I’m Captain Red of Red Rock Mining and blog about it it’s really quite likely that Privateers or Orphanage will wardec us. Those guys collect active hi sec corps as if they were exotic butterflies. Even worse are corp infiltrators.

The second is that I’ll be passing info to competitors. If, say. I make a billion margin trading Guidance Systems at Jita and blog about it that margin will get closed. Possibly for years. So there’s an element that’s like showing a rival poker player your hand.

When I blog about Eve I do think about security. For example I didn’t mind talking about wormhole ninja PI recently because it would be highly impractical to camp me. (I log each alt on for 5 mins a day and spend that time cloaked in a safe, restarting extraction programmes).

Allot of interesting comments and allot more interesting responses from a varied bunch much more than I actually thought would respond with their feedback. So the responses are all appreciated with their varied perspectives.

What is somewhat obvious to me looking at the various responses is that many or most are seemingly aware in various ways that there is allot less EVE blogging, voice and perspective in the community by those that are not well represented.

As well in every comment response there are various elements of truth that all add up to also answer the question asked as well. Many of which I’ve been somewhat well aware of for quite some time now. But its a interesting question to throw out and ask nevertheless in the community and gain the various perspective of others and many seem well aware of the issue as well.

However I’m working on the followup post with my take on things. So instead of responding to all the various comments which are all quite interesting to say the least, I’ll leave my response to the followup post.

I do both. I have 5 accounts, 1 lowsec -10.0, 1 hi-sec griefer and the 3 accounts that run a vast industry/trade empire.

And when I blog it’s never about the latter three… First of all most actual time spend on the bear accounts is spend out of game in googledocs and what time is spend in game is adjusting orders, fuelling towers and collecting stuff or moving it around. Not very good writing material and what novelties there maybe I don’t want to talk about as I don’t want the competition to pick up on it…

Because a blog about the economic heart of eve can be sometimes very informative, but never interesting.

Imagine this type of blog post : “Yesterday we had a mining op. We all got there and mined rocks for 5 hrs. John went afk and allmost didn;t yield the required veldspar/hr. Such are the perils of Eve Online. ”

I think that it hits a very specific audience when you start talking about high sec life.

Personally, I live for high sec. I’m 7+ years into EVE and still haven’t made a real commitment to low/null sec.Honestly, what gets me turned on is seeing the economics going. Watching as a corporation falls and gets replaced-you see a market shift in the economy. I like creating trade relations between two corporations and helping them come to an agreement (for a price of course). I like the business-like nature of EVE. Thats what really gets me going. I’m not into all the PvP and PvE. I leave that to others. But in EVE, everyone needs the businessperson and the economy generators to do their work. You can’t start a war unless you got someone to provide you with the equipment you need. I’m the guy that makes wars possible. Thats what I like in EVE.

It’s very specific people who are like me. And very few are like me. Thats probably why more people don’t blog, because it hits a very targeted audience and not a broad reader base. But thats just my oppinion.

I can’t speak for the rest, but I think the biggest reason for the lack of null-sec blogs is security. It’s easy to slip up on what can be an interesting post and lay out some critical piece of info that a hostile group can take advantage of, whether by covert, political, or overt means. If that weren’t reason enough, EN24 and Kugu cover null pretty extensively (too extensively in Kugu’s case I think, sorting through those forums is a pain).

After that in my mind comes Drackarn’s reason: much of null is carebearing. I don’t know how different this is in sov-less null alliances as opposed to sov-holding null alliances, but the majority of activities I see in sov-holding alliances is ratting and plexing, or some form of industry.

There’s political stuff to go over, if you follow it, but then you have to temper your words such that your alliance heads don’t kick you for what you say on your blog. Then you have to hide or even completely misrepresent details in order to keep yourself, your corpmates, or your alliance safe from harm that could come as a result of your blog. Much of what you’ll see politically is on EN24 or Kugu already though by the time someone writes a blog entry about it.

Which only leaves PvP as a safe writing avenue, which makes your blog fairly similar to the pirate/low-sec blogs, and in the face of all the popular figures already around, people may feel they have hard time contributing anything new, nevermind getting the readership for it. I only overcame the lack of readership after many months of blogging, and in my opinion, only because someone who was connected with the popular bloggers took note and linked my blog. I wasn’t blogging for the readership, which is why I hadn’t given up a few months in, but I think most people need to see that other people are reading what they write or they feel that they’ve wasted the effort.

I do my best to find and support less read blogs. No matter what area a blog covers, I feel strongly that much of the readership is focused almost exclusively on ‘the blog pack’ and other popular figures close to it, and that it’s extremely hard to break into that good ol’ boy group. I could be wrong on this, I’ll admit, but it’s the sense I get, and I’d bet that many prospective bloggers get this same feeling as well.

Still, as you point out, it’s difficult finding non pirate/non low-sec blogs. With Evebloggers.com going down, I assume it’ll only be harder to find such blogs.

I think the comparison can be made in the real world. How many Eve players watch the news on TV about death and destruction compared to how many of them watch Wall Street Week?

Also consider that the people on the money programs are making their money talking about making investments not making money performing in the market. I think there is always something new and interesting going on in the Eve marketplace but it’s not really conducive to blogging about because it’s difficult to relate to the readers the ‘wow’ factor they experienced at the time. There is definitely adrenaline to be had working the markets.

In another comparison; if a pilot figures out a new ship fit that will guarantee him an advantage in certain PvP situations he is not likely to advertise the fit. If a marketer figures out where he can sell skill books for 500% profit that can be hauled by the dozens in an Condor I don’t think it would be wise to tell everyone about it.

I have one last consideration. I believe there are vastly more PvP/Pirate types that are closet care bears than anyone would admit. It surely costs a lot to buy and lose good ships. The so-called care bear activities are a guaranteed income and if you’re good at it it can be an awesome income. I think many of the worst types of pirates are care bears gone wild. It sounds sappy but real warriors have some honor. Pissing on your enemy’s dead carcasses is not honorable. Hey, you already defeated them, have some respect.

Interesting topic. I do agree with the sentiments that industry posts can be very dull when talking about ‘omgz we mined xxxxx today’. When I talk about industry, I try to pick a topic of view that hasn’t been explored and use data to backup the point. I’m finding it to be far more entertaining to write and for the spreadsheet nerds to enjoy.

There are a lot of PVP blogs because the experiences that come with it are unique. I’m trying to bring that discovery to industry topics by branching out into any area of building that I can do in this game and exposing the results.